么 (me) means "what (particle)" with 3 strokes, radical 丿 (slash), HSK 1 on the new exam.
Pronunciation
Meaning
Primary: what (particle)
Etymology
Oracle-bone origin
么 does not appear in oracle bone or bronze inscriptions as an independent graph. It emerged late, historically written as 幺, which in oracle bone script depicted a small twisted silk thread or the loop of a cocoon filament, signifying smallness or fineness. The simplified form 么 is a modern shorthand that retains the 幺 phonetic core minus the upper stroke.
Form evolution
The ancestor 幺 kept its twisted-thread shape from oracle bone through bronze and seal script with minor regularisation. Clerical script straightened the curves into angular strokes, giving the familiar 幺 shape in 楷书. The three-stroke form 么 was standardised in the 1950s simplification reforms as a cursive-derived abbreviation used in grammatical particles and common compounds.
How the meaning evolved
The original 幺 meant 'tiny, young, the smallest of a set' and still carries that sense in words like 幺儿 (youngest child) in regional speech. In modern Mandarin, 么 has shed concrete meaning almost entirely and functions as a grammatical suffix in 什么 (what), 怎么 (how), 这么 (so, like this), and 那么 (then, in that case). The shift from content word to particle reflects centuries of phonetic erosion in colloquial speech.
Cultural note
Learners often confuse 么 with 麼, which is the traditional form used in Taiwan and Hong Kong for the same particle. In classical texts 么 is rare, and reading 什麼 instead of 什么 is a reliable tell that a text uses traditional characters.
Mnemonic
A tiny trailing stroke — suffix for questions
Basic info
| Pinyin | me |
| Meanings | what (particle) |
| Stroke count | 3 strokes |
| Radical | 丿 (#4: slash) |
| New HSK exam | Recognise at HSK 1, write by hand at HSK 1-2 |
| Frequency | #190 most common |
Example sentences
Words containing 么
Related characters
Similar meaning (abstract)
On the new HSK 1 exam
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Frequently Asked Questions
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Reviewed by RJ Murray, Founder, HSK Lord.